This invention relates to a hinge, and particularly to a novel hinge structure where curved edge portions of members to be joined are overlaid on each other, with a compressible, restorable cylindrical spring member being removably fitted in a section of the overlaid edge portions, thus providing a pivotal joint between the members.
Conventional hinge structures have required hinge fittings to be mounted across members which form part of building components, pieces of furniture or the like, for the purposes of providing openable arrangements of door panels, folding arrangements and the like. To provide such hinge joints, thus, not only several steps of working, such as shaping of the locations for the fittings to be mounted in, alignment thereof, screwing of the fittings, and the like have been required, but an inefficient and irksome working operation has been entailed in the respective steps. Further, in the case that such hinge fittings are used to construct collapsible freight containers, the fittings mounted on the surfaces of the wall panels have projecting portions or sharp edges which are likely to injure human bodies in contact, and are likely to be caught by external objects, resulting in breaking off the fittings by impact or stress. Moreover, presence of such hinge fittings on the wall panel outer surfaces has been not favorable to appearance of the freight containers.
Japanese utility model publication No. 5,642/1976 discloses a joint fitting formed by a portion of a member inserted into a portion of another member to be joined to the first named member, so that any separate joining pin can be dispensed with. In the disclosed joint fitting, however, one of the members has to be displaced from the other in an axial direction of the joint in order to disjoin or join the members, and when a plurality of joints are desired to be provided in series, this prior art fitting is not useful because members to be joined are not permitted to be displaced from each other.